The Ultimatum
by Mrs. Shikamaru Nara
Summary: When Moriarty kidnaps Molly and Irene and tells Sherlock he can only save one, who will he pick? One-shot.


Molly had been leaving St. Bart's when it happened. Just a brief pinprick of pain in her neck, and then nothing. When she awoke, everything was fuzzy. Her head felt too big, her eyelids too heavy. She heard the hypnotic echo of water dripping from some unknown source, and she smelled hints of iron and gasoline. Wherever she was, it was incredibly chilly, and her jumper was doing nothing to keep out the cool air. She was covered in goose pimples from head to toe. She wanted to do something about the chill – rub her arms, breathe into her hands – anything. But her hands were bound behind her back. There was a thick rope wrapped around her torso, securing her to a chair. Even her feet were restrained. She didn't know where she was or who had done this to her, but she didn't see a way out. She opened her eyes and her surroundings slowly came into focus. It was dark, damp. She was surrounded by large metal barrels in varying stages of assembly. But the main thing she noticed upon opening her eyes was the large pile of explosives sitting innocently just to her left.

Molly's breath caught in her throat as full-blown panic set in. Molly didn't do well under pressure.

* * *

Irene had been getting into a cab. The cabbie had turned around, as if to ask her where she was going, but instead she'd gotten a face-full of knockout gas, and when she finally regained consciousness, she was in some sort of abandoned warehouse. There were rusted-out conveyor belts and steel scaffolding as far as the eye could see. There was some sort of cord securing her to a chair. High-quality stuff, not something she could slice through. Well, it looked as though she'd gotten herself captured. Again. She glanced around curiously and – yep, there it was – sure enough, there was a sizeable stockpile of plastic explosives that appeared to be primed and ready to go off at any moment. Irene sighed resignedly. After narrowly escaping death so many times before, she was starting to think she just wasn't meant to live.

* * *

From somewhere nearby, Molly heard a strangely familiar sigh. She couldn't quite place it, but she knew she had heard it before. The sound was filtered strangely, imbued with static – certainly not as if the person sighing were in the room with her. Rather, it was as if they were being broadcast on phone speakers, and –

That's it! A phone! Sherlock's phone had made that noise at the Christmas party last year! This was perfect – if Sherlock were here, she was saved!

"Sherlock, is that you?" she croaked desperately, her heartbeat rising to her throat.

* * *

There was a weird voice coming from somewhere. Irene couldn't exactly pinpoint the source of the noise, as the metal paneling did nothing but bounce sound around endlessly, but it sounded as though it were coming out of a radio or an answering machine or something. The voice belonged to a girl, and she sounded incredibly young. Or if not young, then tragically naïve, and that wasn't much better. But Irene found herself taking pity on the poor thing anyway.

"No, this is Irene. Who are you?"

* * *

Molly was crestfallen. The responding voice was just as staticky as the sigh had been, so that wasn't a ringtone. There was no one in the warehouse to save her. It was just some woman on the other end of a phone line. But that was much better than nothing.

"Oh, thank God. You have to help me! My name is Molly Hooper and I've been kidnapped!" Molly was painfully aware of all the cracks and vulnerabilities in her voice, and normally she'd be bothered by them, but at present she couldn't really find it in herself to care. "I don't know where I am, but I think I'm in some sort of warehouse, maybe underground, and I hear something leaking, so I might be by a river? Please, just call the police!"

Much to her surprise, the woman on the other end started chuckling wryly.

Molly felt hot blood rush to her cheeks and the tips of her ears. "Don't laugh at me! I'm not kidding! Call the police!" she shrieked.

The woman's laughing intensified briefly and then died out all at once. "I'm not laughing _at_ you, darling. I'm laughing 'cause I've been kidnapped too."

* * *

Irene suddenly remembered her experiences from the previous year, when she'd been captured by the Afghan terrorist cell. How scared she'd been. She'd been about to die, she had been certain of it, prepared for it…but the blow had never come. Instead she'd looked into her would-be-killer's eyes and seen the last thing she'd ever expected: a familiar icy blue gaze. Hope. Her heart, which hadn't been beating so much as fluttering up until that point, had skipped a beat. And then started beating incredibly loudly; Irene became extremely aware of every beat, every breath, every second she was still alive. _When I say run_, he'd whispered, _RUN_.

Snapping out of her memories and back into the factory, she found herself smiling somewhat ironically. Sure, she was in another sticky situation, but she'd find a way out. She always did. And if she didn't, there was a certain detective she was confident wouldn't allow her to die. Again.

Over the phone, Irene could practically feel the anger leaving poor Molly's body. "Oh," Molly's voice crackled remorsefully through the speakers. "Oh, I'm sorry I shouted at you. You must be terrified too."

"No, not really. You'd be surprised how often things like this happen to me. And speaking of, did I hear you mention Sherlock earlier? Sherlock Holmes?"

"Umm…yeah," said a stunned Molly. "Do you know him?"

Irene smirked. "I suppose you could say that."

"You suppose?"

"Well, if you want the simplified version, he saw me naked, I drugged him, I betrayed him to a psychopath for petty cash, I faked my own death, he cracked my phone pass key, I got into some trouble, he saved my life. He didn't keep in touch."

* * *

Molly sat in stunned silence on her end of the phone. When she heard about all the things Irene had done with Sherlock, it made her own experiences seem sort of pathetic in comparison. Sure, she'd spent a lot of time with the man, but she'd mostly just been fetching him coffee when he needed caffeine, and cadavers when he was running experiments. Irene sounded like an adventure girl, someone who'd have stories written about her someday. Molly was just some insignificant girl who worked in a morgue.

"You know, I remember Sherlock X-raying a phone once. Do you think that was yours?"

"Definitely. He told me as much."

"Ah," said Molly. She had been hoping for a negative answer. "So then you're The Woman."

* * *

"Is that what he calls me?" Irene said, her interest piqued. "Now, is that The _Woman_ or _The_ Woman?"

"Does it make a difference?"

"I think so."

"Well, I dunno…I mean…I – uh – he doesn't really talk _to_ me, unless he needs me to fetch him something. He mostly talks _around_ me. Honestly, I think he forgets I'm there most of the time. It's a bit sad, really."

Irene's confident smile turned down at the edges as she heard something in Molly's voice that she knew all too well. "So you love him too, then?"

For several moments, there was only static over the phone line, but then ever-so-quietly, Irene heard a solemn, "More than anything."

Irene sighed. "He seems to have that effect on a lot of people."

"Well, it's nice to see you ladies getting to know one another," came an unknown third voice over the line, "but I think it's really time we get down to business."

* * *

Molly knew that voice. That voice was Irish and condescending and sweet but now that she knew the truth about that voice it just sounded sinister. She furrowed her brow in disbelief.

"Jim? Is that you?"

"Wonderful to hear your voice again, Miss Molly. You haven't been returning my calls lately."

"Yes, well after you held two of my best friends at gunpoint and terrorized the entirety of London, I was a bit less keen on you."

"Ah, so Sherlock's a friend now. Weren't you just saying he doesn't even know you exist most of the time? He really sounds like a wonderful friend."

"He's better than you."

"Yes, well at least I gave you the time of day."

"What the hell is happening right now?" came Irene's voice. "Molly, how the fuck do you know James Moriarty? And Jim, what the hell is going on here?"

"Hang on," interjected Molly. "How do _you_ know Jim, Irene?"

"Remember that psychopath I said I was working for?"

"Ah."

"Yeah."

"Ladies!" Jim shouted. "Let's not forget your little predicament. Now, I've already informed Sherlock of all this, so I suppose it doesn't really matter whether or not I explain it to you, but I think if I give you the plan, your commentary might get a bit more interesting."

"What are you talking about, Jim?" Irene demanded.

"Hang on, give me a moment. I'm just warming up. So I guess I'll start this explanation by saying only one of you walks out of this alive."

"JIM!" Molly shrieked, just as Irene murmured, "Predictable."

"I've given Sherlock an ultimatum," explained Jim. "He has one hour from now to decide who he wants to save, but he can only pick one. The moment he saves one of you, the other gets blown up. If he tries to send someone else to save the other one, I say the word and both of you go up in flames. If you try to get loose on your own, you die. If he doesn't pick before the hour's up, you're both dead. Fairly simple, right?"

"Jim, this is barbaric!" Molly protested. "What do you possibly hope to accomplish with this plan? What's in this for you?"

"Nothing. But isn't that the fun of it? Just chaos for chaos's sake. This isn't for me, Molly. This is for Sherlock."

"And how do you figure that?" Irene asked poisonously.

"He's built himself up too high. He needs to learn he can't save everyone. There's not always a way out for the mighty Sherlock Holmes."

"But why us?"

"Well, quite honestly, I _am_ a bit miffed with you both. I mean, one of you decided to play the hero and abandon me, and the other one's my ex-girlfriend. And you both left me for Sherlock, so I suppose I just thought this match-up would turn out interestingly."

"Just to be clear, Jim, you were never my boyfriend," Molly said defensively. "We went out _three times_."

"Say what you want, ladies, but remember you've only got an hour to say it. Well, that's my bit. Best of luck," he said sarcastically.

* * *

"Jim?" Irene asked. No reply. He was gone. "What an arse."

"So what do we do?" came Molly's anxious voice over the line. "I don't exactly have much experience with these hostage situation…thingies."

Irene ran through the circumstances in her head, but came up short. "What can we do? Jim hasn't left us many options. If we do anything, we die. Do you want to die?"

"Don't be daft."

"Then we can't do anything. Think about it this way: if we do nothing, there's a 50% chance you'll live, but if either of us try anything, there's a 100% chance we both die, so you do the math. We do nothing."

Molly sighed, sending thick crackling white noise across the phone line connecting the two women. "Alright," she said. "We'll just wait for Sherlock."

* * *

(30 minutes left)

Molly's breathing had calmed considerably. Whereas before she'd been inhaling and exhaling at approximately the rate at which a hummingbird beats its wings, she was now breathing at a rate more similar to that of a butterfly's wings.

"You doing okay?" floated Irene's voice into her swimming brain.

Molly gulped in sheer terror. "Yeah," she lied.

A pause. "So are you going to ask, or should I?"

"Ask what?"

Another pause. "Who's Sherlock going to save?"

Molly's breathing stopped entirely for a moment. "What?"

"Well he can only save one of us. Who's it going to be?"

Molly had been trying not to think about it, _really_ trying not to think about it, but now that it had been said out loud, there was no avoiding it. "I dunno."

"Well you've got to have an opinion, haven't you?"

"If I could think like Sherlock, I'd tell you," Molly answered shrilly. "But I can't, and I really have _no bloody idea_ what goes on it that daft head of his, so _no!_ I haven't got a bloody opinion!"

Another pause, this one ringing with shock. "I'm so sorry," Molly said quietly, stumbling a bit over the syllables. "That's the rudest thing I've ever said."

"No, it's…fine," Irene said. "We, er…we don't have to talk about it. We don't have to talk."

Molly sniffled pathetically and she couldn't tell if she was being overcome with emotion or was just cold. "Alright," she agreed.

* * *

(10 minutes left)

"It's gonna be you," Irene heard suddenly, the burst of noise jolting her from her silent stupor.

"What?" she asked dumbly.

"Sherlock," Molly explained. "He'll save you."

Irene was taken aback. After Molly's earlier outburst, she'd thought about it a lot, and she'd come to the opposite conclusion. "Why do you say that?"

Molly took a deep breath. "He's been through a lot with you," she began. "He's been through more with you than he's ever been through with me. If anything, I just get in his way. I accidentally start dating the criminal he's been looking for for months, I ask him stupid questions while he's working, I make a complete arse of myself in front of him at Christmas last year…no. He doesn't need me. But you, you're smart, you're experienced, and he's already saved your life once, so clearly he cares about you." Irene heard Molly sniffle and imagined her trying to hold back tears. "That's more than I can say about myself."

"You're crazy, you know that?"

"What?"

"He's bound to pick you. He's done with me. I ruined his life; he saved mine. I already owe him everything. The cruel thing now is that the biggest way I can help him now is by disappearing forever. I have too many criminal ties, and they'll catch up with me sooner or later. Faking my death the first time didn't stop them for long, and faking my death a second time doesn't appear to be working much better. No, Molly, I'm a time bomb, and my timer's running out. If Sherlock is being at all as logical as I know he can be, he'll pick you."

"But you're important! I'm not important; I'm just some girl who works in a morgue."

"Good lord, Molly, don't you want to live?"

"_Of course I do!_ I want to believe there's a life for me outside these walls, I want to believe I have a future, but if I live, then you die, and I don't know how I could ever live with that."

Irene breathed deeply and closed her eyes. "Molly, whatever happens next…it's not our fault. If Sherlock saves you, you're not killing me, Jim is. If he saves me, I'm not killing you, Jim is. This is not our fault."

The sniffles on Molly's end were definitely growing louder as time went on. By Irene's count, they had no more than five minutes left.

"Shh, Molly," Irene crooned, "it's going to be fine." She wasn't sure anymore if she was talking to Molly or to herself.

For a moment, there was silence on the line, but then Molly erupted in a new series of sobs. "No! No, no – not me, you can't have picked me! No, you're making a mistake!"

Irene's eyes widened. As sure as she'd been that Sherlock hadn't been coming for her, it was still a real hit to the gut to know she was right.

"Molly, stop struggling, we have to get you out of here," she heard, his dulcet voice still every bit as beautiful as she remembered it.

"Sherlock?" she said quietly, almost hoping that he wouldn't hear her. No such luck.

"Irene," he said without emotion.

Irene gulped nervously. "You're making the right choice," she said.

Pause. "I know," he replied.

Pause. "Irene?" he continued. "I'm sorry."

Irene smiled sadly. "Goodbye, Mr. Holmes," she said. And she knew Jim must have been listening because just as she finished that sentence and she heard receding footsteps on the other end of the line, she heard a great boom and was engulfed in flames.

It looked as though even Irene Adler couldn't escape death a third time.

* * *

Molly was sobbing into Sherlock's chest, where he'd gathered her in an awkward hug. They were outside the abandoned warehouse and Molly was keenly aware of every star in the night sky, every goose pimple on her skin, every fiber of Sherlock's coat. It felt good to be alive, but she could see smoke and hear sirens in the distance, and she knew that her life had come at a cost.

"Why?" she asked through her tears. "Why me?"

Sherlock placed a long finger under Molly's chin and pulled her face up until she was facing him. "Because you're important," he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You're more important than you know."

He kissed her once on the forehead and for a moment Molly felt warm.

Sherlock broke their embrace and took one of Molly's hands in one of his own. "Now let's get you home."


End file.
